The nurse was evidently impressed with Pons’ authoritative manner for she merely glanced at him, compressed her thin lips and whispered, ‘Very good, sir.”
Pons moved over and took the key from the inside of the small bedroom door, transferring it to the outer lock.
“What about this window, Pons?” I asked.
Pons looked at me with satisfaction.
“You are constantly improving, Parker. I am glad to see my training has not been wasted. There is a sheer brick wall outside this room, which drops straight to the terrace. They would need something like a fireman’s ladder to get up this way so we have nothing to fear that side.”
With another admonition to Miss Cust, Pons ushered me out of the room, turning the key in the lock behind us. He then put it in his pocket and procured a chair from the side of the room. Using his handkerchief he took the bulb from the light fitting in the centre of the room so that we were plunged into darkness. There was a standard lamp in the corner and he did the same thing there.
“We shall have some slight advantage, Parker, as they will be silhouetted against the light if they break the door down and that is always valuable in case of emergency.”
I said nothing, mentally estimating that we should now have only a few minutes to wait for reinforcements to arrive. We settled down grimly in the dark, crouched behind two big armchairs near the windows. These were already covered with heavy curtains so that we ourselves would not be silhouetted against the moonlight.
The only illumination in the room came from the two cracks of light beneath the doors of the small bedroom and that of the one leading into the corridor. I felt perspiration beading my forehead and the trigger-guard of the revolver was greasy to my touch. There was to be only a very brief interval before the next developments.
We had hardly knelt in the dimness of that sombre house when there came the muffled, but unmistakable vibration of feet on the carpeting of the main staircase. They came on at an unhurried, even pace, and I concluded that there were three men. This time there was no knocking on the panel but something far more dramatic. Merely the grating of a key in the lock but I must confess it sent a chill to my soul.
The man with the key was having some trouble forcing it through for of course it met the shank of the key on our side, which I had already turned. Before he could bring his efforts to a conclusion one way or another Pons spoke.
“I should not try that if I were you, Marceau!”
There was a muffled exclamation in Spanish and a hasty conference outside the door in which mingled English and Spanish voices overlapped. An uneasy silence prevailed and then a harsh, grating voice with a marked foreign accent spoke.
“What is the meaning of this?”
“It means, Marceau, that your game is up,” said Solar Pons coolly.
A snarl was the only answer and the explosion seemed to fill the whole room as the man on the other side of the door put a bullet into the lock. I flattened myself into the carpet as the missile whined angrily round the room and plaster pattered to the floor somewhere.
“Unwise,” said Solar Pons calmly. “I must warn you that the first man through that door will receive short commons.”
There was another muffled exclamation and then the light in the corridor went out.
“They are becoming less hysterical, Parker,” Pons observed smoothly. “Despite the loss of a clear target I trust you will still be able to hit that door.”
“I will do my best, Pons,” I replied stoutly.
I had no sooner finished speaking than there came a crash followed by a vibrating shudder which made the bedroom door strain on its hinges. I heard a cry from the child in the far room and a moment later the soothing tones of Miss Cust. There was another blow on the door and then another.
“They are using the oak settle from the corridor,” said Pons calmly. “Wait until the door is down before you use the revolver.”
He got up as he spoke and drew back the curtains. Moonlight flooded into the room and by its powdered silver I saw the furnishings of the room and the doorway clearly. Pons glanced again at his watch and gave a grunt of satisfaction.
“It is almost time, I think.”
We disposed ourselves to one side of the window, well into the deep shadow, where we were unlikely to be immediately spotted by anyone coming into the room. The door was proving remarkably tough. There had been four or five more blows upon it but it still showed no sign of giving.
Another ugly silence intervened. I was aware of a furtive shifting noise in the corridor and the whisper of voices which caused a faint prickling of my scalp. The battering on the door was preferable; there was something unutterably sinister about the mumbled colloquy beyond the door, the details of which were not quite distinct enough to make out.
“Be ready, Parker!” Pons warned me crisply and the assault on the door was resumed so suddenly that I was almost taken by surprise. At the third thundering concussion there was a high, rending noise and I knew that the hinges were giving. There was a final assault and the door was down, though it still held at the lock-plate. Someone reached in and plucked fruitlessly at the light-switch. I shot him through the shoulder while he was doing that and he went down with a groan of pain.
Pons was on his feet now, a small whistle to his lips. He blew three piercing blasts which were answered by three faint echoes from the far distance.
“Excellent!” Pons observed cheerfully. “For once Jamison is on time.”
The door was down now and there was a rush of bodies toward us. A pistol flamed and by the flash I saw two heavy figures. I fired at the nearest and the group in the dim moonlight wavered and fell back. One figure alone kept advancing. I got off another shot and it wavered, the gun drooping toward the floor as the knees buckled.
There was shouting in the house and heavy feet on the stairs; the people in the doorway seemed confused and broke up. Someone stumbled and fell on the staircase. Two more shots sounded. The revolver of the big man hit the carpet with a thump. I held my own pistol and bided my time.
There came the sound of heavy breathing near me. The big man hung suspended against the moonlight. Then he went down with a crash that shook the room. I was kneeling and he hit the front of one of the wing chairs, his face almost in mine. Black shadows crawled from the corner of the cruel mouth.
“Could you get some light on, Pons,” I said rather shakily. “By all means, my dear fellow.”
My companion was up on the chair and screwed the light bulb into its socket. By the dim illumination we took in the ruined aspect of the bedroom, the wrecked door, the groaning man who had clapped a reddened handkerchief to his shoulder. The man who half-knelt, half-lay against the wing chair had stopped breathing now. Pons turned him over with fierce eyes.
“You will have the gratitude of a great many people, I fancy, Parker. Tiger Marceau has played his last hand.”
I scrambled to my feet. The revolver suddenly felt as heavy as lead. I became aware that the corridor outside was filling with people, among them uniformed constables and plainclothes men. I suddenly recognised Jamison among them, his features sullen and scowling. He opened his eyes wide as he saw the body of the man with white streaks in his hair.
“My God, Mr. Pons! I only hope there is a good explanation for all this?”
Solar Pons nodded grimly.
“There is, Jamison. Kidnapping and extortion for one. Revolutionary plotting and planning the overthrow of a South American regime on British soil. They will do to be going on with. Ah, Bancroft! You come most opportunely.”